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Tonderai Rutsito Business Correspondent
“We’re going to introduce voice on in the second quarter of this year, we think we have the best voice product out there, we use the least amount of bandwidth and optimise it,” he said.
While the news was well received in some quarters it was bad news for Zimbabwean mobile network operators who are already reeling from the opportunity costs created by WhatsApp which literally hit the last nail in Multi Media Messaging (MMS) and heavily discouraged texting by smartphone users in Zimbabwe.

The announcement also highlights the point I have repeatedly made that the future belongs to internet protocol no matter how much mobile operators have tried to fight or delay its implementation, the writing is on the wall.

Currently three operators in Zimbabwe led by Africom, ZOL and Powertel are already using or silently advancing into voice over internet protocol, the same technology which WhatsApp will be using to transfer voice over internet protocol, but it’s all about the compression technologies.

Skype pioneered the same concept with Viber trying to make the voice data packets much more compressed, while WhatsApp has promised even more compression and we eagerly await to see how the development will be rolled out.

With 465 million subscribers, WhatsApp has grown so popular and I feel that even if it fails to deliver so much of voice data packets compression, it will still be popular and viable more than the current voice calls charges and few people will really complain about these compression ratios against those of its competitors.

Viber is a cool alternative where one can actually call via the app but its little popularity in Zimbabwe has made it a lame duck even against Skype on mobile version, an app I personally use quiet often even  on the go.

WhatsApp already offers voice recording messaging, the ability to send recorded messages to friends that also allows them to respond with recorded messages of their own.

The voice communication that WhatsApp boss was talking about was a real time telephone call than voice mail recording exchange, and he was quiet bullish about its prospects.

“In order for WhatsApp to be successful, it really needs to be independent, there are no planned changes. We can only get our product to a billion or 2 billion users if we continue down the path we started on.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has tried to encourage its users to share more about themselves, but WhatsApp will continue with its own, very separate strategy.

“We as a company and product want to know as little as possible about our users.
“We don’t want to know your name or where you live, there are no plans to change that,” Koum said
The big question is can WhatsApp deliver a technology way better than what Skype or Viber has already offered the market. Is this really attainable or it was mere grandstanding during the Mobile World Congress.

Will this really be as big as WhatsApp has already promised or it will be another flop?
My other concern is on whether Econet made a wise decision in promoting WhatsApp bundles?

Will they still promote a competitor who is threatening to get a slice of their cake? Only time will tell.
My best bet is that our mobile operators will be forced to start opening up on VoIP or risk going out of business.

My humble suggestion is that they should introduce their own independent app which can push VoIP traffic or bundles that are tailor made for VoIP to VoIP calls within or across network before WhatsApp’s roll out.

The writer is the Founding Editor of TechnoMag. More on Tech on www.technomag.co.zw or join us on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/technomagzw and enjoy free airtime quiz games. Email: ictarticles[at]technomag.co.zw